Classic Rock 93.9

A new photo exhibit highlighting the Grateful Dead is coming to Los Angeles in July.

An American Beauty: Grateful Dead 1965–1995 is set to open at the David Kordansky Gallery. Timed to coincide with this year’s 60th anniversary of the iconic band, the exhibit will feature photos curated by photographer Jay Blakesberg and his daughter, Ricki Blakesberg.

The exhibit will include 28 large photos and 32 smaller prints highlighting the band’s 60-year career. According to the description, the exhibit “provides many windows into the core of the Grateful Dead experience, in which the energy between the performers and the audience was constantly feeding off each other.”

“An American Beauty: Grateful Dead 1965–1995 is not just a celebration of the band— it’s a visual journey through three decades of cultural evolution, community, and creativity,” says Jay.

An American Beauty: Grateful Dead 1965–1995 will open on July 15. Opening day will feature a panel discussion with Jay, as well as well-known Dead photographers Ron Rakow, Rosie McGee and others. 

In addition to the exhibit, there will be an accompanying coffee-table book featuring 275 photographs from well-known Dead photographers. It will be released Aug. 1, to coincide with Jerry Garcia’s birthday, and will be available for preorder starting July 12.

More info on the exhibit can be found at davidkordanskygallery.com.

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Queen is continuing their celebration of the upcoming 40th anniversary of Live Aid by raising money for charity with a new line of Live Aid merch.

The new official limited-edition Live Aid + Queen merchandise includes two T-shirts — one featuring Queen’s Live Aid set list and one with a picture of the band — as well as a poster, all of which were designed and overseen by Brian May, Roger Taylor and Live Aid co-founder Bob Geldof.

Proceeds from the sales will benefit Queen’s Mercury Phoenix Trust, which raises funds for the fight against HIV/AIDs, as well as the Band Aid Trust, which raises money to eradicate hunger and poverty in Ethiopia and other countries.

All items are available for preorder and will ship on July 11.

This is just one way Queen is marking the Live Aid anniversary. As previously reported, on July 13, the actual 40th anniversary of the event, Queen will show their Live Aid set on their YouTube channel for 24 hours starting at 6:41 p.m. BST, the same time Queen took the stage at Wembley Stadium.

Live Aid, organized by Geldof and Midge Ure, took place at London’s Wembley Stadium and Philly’s John F. Kennedy Stadium. The benefit concerts raised more than $150 million for Ethiopian famine relief.

CNN is also set to mark the anniversary with the new four-part docuseries Live Aid: When Rock ’n’ Roll Took On the World, premiering July 13 at 9 p.m. ET. The docuseries features interviews with Geldof, as well as U2’s Bono, Sting, Phil Collins and others, along with “rare archival footage” of Live Aid performances and backstage.

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Here’s something we can’t make up: Ozzy Osbourne makeup.

The Prince of Darkness has announced a collaboration with the company Jolie Beauty, which is based in Black Sabbath‘s hometown of Birmingham, England.

“We’re not slowing down, this collab’s a one-way ticket on the Crazy Train,” reads a post on the Jolie Beauty Instagram. “No brakes. No rules. Just pure, unfiltered rock ‘n’ glam mayhem.”

The exact details of the collection have yet to be revealed, but you can sign up for more info via JolieBeauty.co.uk.

Perhaps Ozzy will be sporting Jolie Beauty makeup when he takes the stage for Black Sabbath’s Back to the Beginning reunion/farewell concert, taking place Saturday in Birmingham. The show will mark Ozzy’s final live performance of his career.

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Foo Fighters are up to something, and they’re certainly not Wasting Light.

Dave Grohl and company have shared a Facebook post featuring four photos of the band seemingly in the recording studio. We say seemingly, since the photos are all very dark and barely lit.

A fan writes in the comments, “You need a decent photographer!!,” to which the Foos responded, “We aren’t known for our photography skills.”

The post’s caption doesn’t offer to much info, either — it only includes the year 2025 and #FF30. Notably, the Foos’ 1995 self-titled album turns 30 on Friday.

Foo Fighters also just put out a cover of a Minor Threat song on Monday, marking the first new release to follow their 2023 album, But Here We Are. Since then, the band has gone through a fair amount of turmoil between Grohl’s 2024 infidelity scandal and the May firing of drummer Josh Freese.

Foo Fighters are set to return to the live stage in October for a tour of Asia.

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Zak Starkey has been through a lot since April, when he was fired, then rehired, then fired again from The Who. 

Despite losing the gig, he tells the U.K.’s The Independent that Roger Daltrey has told him to leave his drum kit in The Who’s storage — just in case. And Starkey doesn’t seem surprised by all the drama.

“The thing is, this is The Who, man. The most unpredictable, aggressive, arrogant people, lovely people who are my family, but you never know what’s gonna happen, and that’s why it’s The Who,” he says. “They have an addiction to friction.”

Starkey calls The Who “the oddest, maddest group there is,” but doesn’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing.

“If you look at The Who through the years, all the way back, there’s four completely opposite people. One of them writes all the songs and thinks the other three are an art installation. And they don’t know what that means,” he tells the paper. “They are the craziest, weirdest group there’s ever been. That’s what’s great, isn’t it, that they’re so untraditional with everything that they’ve ever done.”

Problems arose between The Who and Starkey during The Who’s Teenage Cancer Trust shows at London’s Royal Albert Hall in March, with Daltrey calling out Starkey’s playing during “The Song is Over.” He was fired in April, but then rehired by the band, only for The Who to announce in May he was once again let go.

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Willie Nelson’s Outlaw Music Festival, which features Bob Dylan as one of the headliners, has canceled its Tuesday show in El Reno, Oklahoma, due to what’s being described as “unforeseen circumstances.”

“An extreme weather event on the evening of June 29th in Ridgedale, MO at Thunder Ridge Nature Arena produced heavy rains and high winds forcing the crowd to evacuate,” reads a post on the festival’s Instagram page. It notes that “much of the Outlaw Music Festival’s equipment and artists’ instruments were damaged and waterlogged.”

The post shares that organizers aren’t sure there’s enough time to figure out whether it will be safe to use the equipment for the Oklahoma show.

“The potential damage has halted the festival production as they recover and replace what’s necessary for the tour to resume,” the post says. “The tour looks forward to resuming in Austin on July 4.”

The promoters apologized to fans for the cancellation, sharing that those with tickets will be receiving full refunds.

In addition to Nelson and Dylan, performers for this year’s Outlaw Music Festival include Sheryl Crow, Billy Strings, Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats, The Avett Brothers, Wilco, Bruce Hornsby & The Noisemakers and Lucinda Williams.

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Something unpredictable happened during Green Day‘s concert in Luxembourg Monday, but in the end, Billie Joe Armstrong decided it wasn’t right.

As seen in fan-shot footage, Armstrong invited a fan onstage to play acoustic guitar for a rendition of “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life).” However, instead of playing the recognizable picked opening to “Good Riddance,” the fan started strumming the chords to Oasis‘ “Wonderwall.”

When Armstrong realized what the fan was doing, he took the guitar away from them and they were ushered off stage.

“Nice try,” Armstrong said.

Hopefully for the fan, they felt like they had the time of their life during their brief time onstage.

Oasis, meanwhile, is set to launch their much-anticipated reunion tour in the U.K. on Friday. The trek will come to the U.S. in August.

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ZZ Top’s first four albums were released as a high fidelity vinyl box set in 2024, and now their next five albums are getting the same treatment.

Rhino is set to release From the Top (1979–1990) on Friday, featuring 1979’s Degüello, 1981’s Loco, 1983’s Diamond-certified Eliminator, 1985’s Afterburner and 1990’s Recycler. All copies are cut from the original stereo master tapes and pressed on 180-gram heavyweight vinyl.

Only 3,000 individually numbered copies of From the Top: 1979-1990 will be available and can be preordered now exclusively at rhino.com.

Last year’s box set, From the Top: 1971-1976, included vinyl reissues of 1971’s ZZ Top’s First Album, 1972’s Rio Grande Mud, 1973’s Tres Hombres, 1975’s Fandango! and 1976’s Tejas. It was a sellout.

ZZ Top is set to hit the road this summer for more dates of their Elevation tour. After a performance at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in Sturgis, Idaho, on Aug. 1, the tour kicks off Aug. 2 in Sioux City, Iowa. A complete list of dates can be found at ZZTop.com.

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On This Day, July 1, 1967 …

The Beatles hit #1 with their eighth studio album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, which featured such classic Beatles tunes as the title track, “With a Little Help From My Friends,” “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” “When I’m Sixty Four,” “Lovely Rita” and “A Day in the Life.”

Sgt. Pepper’s was The Beatles eighth #1 album and spent 15 weeks at the top of the charts in the U.S. It went on to win the Grammy for album of the year, the first rock album to ever win the top award, and was inducted into the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress in 2003.

A critical and commercial success, Sgt. Pepper’s has been certified 11-times Platinum by the RIAA.

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Celebrations are in order as Blondie‘s iconic frontwoman Debbie Harry is turning 80 on Tuesday.

Harry co-founded Blondie with guitarist Chris Stein in New York in the ‘70s. The band hit it big in 1979 with the release of their third studio album, Parallel Lines, a top-10 hit in the U.S. thanks to songs like “Heart of Glass,” their first #1 single, “One Way or Another” and “Hanging on the Telephone.”

The band went on to have four #1 singles, have sold over 40 million albums worldwide and were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2006. And they’re still making music, with Stein revealing that a new album’s expected out sometime this year.

Harry also launched a solo career in 1981 with the album KooKoo and dabbled in acting, appearing in such movies as 1988’s Hairspray and 2002’s Deuces Wild.

She’s also been a fashion icon throughout her career; in a new interview with Vanity Fair she discussed the pressure she’s felt to look good, sharing she’s had plastic surgery because it “made me feel better about myself.”

“Maybe it made me feel happy, or more confident. It was just something that I felt necessary at the time,” she explains. “I wanted to work, and so much of women being attractive, and being a selling point, is clearly showbiz. If you’re going to be in the business, be in it.”

As for how Harry plans to celebrate 80, back in January she told the U.K. paper The Times, “I’m going to have a whopping great party with everyone there. Though one of the bad things about aging is everyone’s gone already.”

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